Monday, August 15, 2016

A Whalers Bump from Marc

With my vacation and "weekend of Pearl Jam" now in the rear-view mirror (pun intended), it's been all about adjusting back to the daily grind here at Shoebox Legends. A rough travel week for work last week made this more challenging than usual, but this week is a fresh start. Let's start things off on this Monday with a trade package that I'm long overdue in saying thanks for.

This particular envelope was a PWE from my buddy Marc B composed entirely of new Hartford Whalers cards for my collection! As the years go by it's getting harder and harder to find Whalers cards that I don't yet have, but somehow Marc found a full dozen this time around. The highlight for me was this great in-person autograph of Sylvain Cote.

Sylvain was the Whalers' first round pick in the 1984 entry draft, and lasted a few seasons with Hartford before he was dealt to the Capitals for a draft pick (which ended up being Andrei Nikolishin). I've got a handful of Sylvain's cards, but this is definitely my first autograph. A very thoughtful centerpiece to an excellent PWE. Let's see what else was inside...

Dan Keczmer ended up wearing a Whalers uniform after he was traded to Hartford by the San Jose Sharks (for Dean Evason). Dan played in just 36 total games with the Whalers before they moved on, so he doesn't have a whole lot of Whalers cards out there. This one is actually an Emerald Ice parallel.

My latest card of 6' 6" defensive monster Marek Malik. I know this isn't a proper Whalers card, but I certainly count it. Great look at his epic mullet either way.

Jim Storm is definitely not a household name, even among die-hard hockey fans. His NHL career amounted to 84 games, all but 10 of them played with the Whalers. He scored just 7 goals over that span, not too impressive for a left wing.

Geoff Sanderson, on the other hand, is a player that Whalers fans remember fondly. There were a few years there where his speed and goal-scoring prowess were some of the only exciting things the team had going. I believe this is the only Black Diamond set to be released when the Whalers were still in Hartford.

This is one of two goalie cards in the envelope where not only had I never seen the card before, but I actually had no recollection of the set even existing. For those interested, this insert set is Goaltending Greats, and it's from the 1994-95 Pinnacle release.

File this one under "I can't believe I didn't have it already". My brothers and I opened a lot of packs of Parkhurst hockey in the early '90s, and I don't ever recall even laying eyes on this one. Michael's son William is now playing for Toronto, which makes me feel super old.

Here's a nice Gold parallel of Brad McCrimmon. As most hockey fans know, Brad was the head coach of the doomed Yaroslavl Lokomotiv team whose plane crashed after takeoff in 2011; such a sad story.

This Score Darren Turcotte card is a "black ice" parallel, pretty easy to see where the name came from. These kind of remind me of those all-black Wal-Mart parallels from Topps baseball a few years back.

Here's another Score parallel, this one of the "Golden Blades" variety. The card stock is a little thinner than your standard Score card, and these feature a less glossy, more matte finish as well. This is the first Golden Blades parallel in my entire collection, pretty cool!

This is one of those late '90s inserts where they appear to cram two players onto a card just because. I know Lindros was a bigger, more rugged (at least before the concussions) type of center, so maybe that's why they chose to pair him up with Gordie Howe here? Whatever the reasoning, I can't complain about adding (half of) a new Gordie Howe to my Whalers collection.

The final card of the envelope was perhaps the most surprising to me. I absolutely loved the first couple of Fleer Ultra hockey sets, particularly the inserts. I have no idea how this entire Prospect insert set from the '93-94 release escaped me until now, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever even seen one.

Marc, thanks for the awesome package, and sorry it took me so long to say thanks! This was one of the larger Whalers lots I've acquired in a trade, and every card was a total home run. Best of all, this package tipped me over the 1,600 total unique Whalers cards threshold!